


turn the pain into peaches

by sourgreen



Category: The Boyz (Korea Band)
Genre: Death and stuff, Drug Abuse, M/M, References to Depression, Social Media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:14:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26346205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sourgreen/pseuds/sourgreen
Summary: "God, I can’t believe you’re dead. You’re six feet under and your eyes are closed and they’ll be like that until the world, like, implodes and we start from the beginning.There’s gonna be, fuckin’, birds and shit just chilling on your grave. Not giving a fuck.Just pecking at your forever home."
Relationships: Bae Joonyoung | Jacob & Moon Hyungseo | Kevin, Bae Joonyoung | Jacob/Moon Hyungseo | Kevin
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29





	turn the pain into peaches

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i've posted this before, but wasn't happy with it, so i deleted it days after. still iffy, but i wanted to post something. it's strange, and the format of it may be hard to follow?? idk lol UM please don't read this if you're sensitive to death, overdoses, drugs, etc. this is very much experimental! and very short! and also maybe kind of a vent fic for me. enjoy ig xx
> 
> title from peaches - grandson & k.flay <3

**What’s on your mind, Kevin?**

_ ‘Why do I even use Facebook?’ _

The mound of flesh and bones peeps up from under his covers for the first time today.

He thinks, anyway. 

He’s actually not too sure what time it is, what day it is, if it’s still this year. If years exist. If he exists. If he really is just a sack of blood and guts and fucked up cells, with a label and genitals and a mouth the shape of an inquisitive, flexible caterpillar. 

What does he even look like? 

Answers his own question. Clicks around until Photobooth springs to life, rips the washi tape off of his webcam and is met with his own face.

Shit. Shit, being the thing that he resembles, and shit, because  _ shit _ , he can’t fucking  _ stand  _ himself anymore. 

Never in his life has he accumulated more than five Facebook notifications at one time. He disappears for a week and his laptop is lagging. His high school gym teacher pops up just then, sending a mess of prayer hand and broken heart Emojis.

_ ‘He doesn’t care. Didn’t he call me a slur once because I didn’t understand the physics of volleyball?” _

Kevin stares at himself, opens and closes a chat, leaves his dad on read. Opens another chat, and another, and drowns in the knowledge that people only miss you when you’re gone.

_ ‘I wish I was gone. Damn, I’m so edgy _ .”

The bag of organs slumps forward, makes no effort to fix his fried hair and clicks the record button. 

_ ‘Words.’ _

_ ‘Words. You have to say them, Kevin.’ _

In for seven, out for eleven. Learning how to breathe all over again before he opens his mouth and pukes his heart and mind and every word he’s ever learned to the camera. 

**“I feel like I’m nothing.”**

_ ‘There you go. Just get your feelings out, man.’ _

**“My bowels are so unhealthy right now.”**

_ ‘I mean, odd start, but sure.’ _

**“Genuinely. I can’t shit.**

**I’m so fucking sad that I can’t even push out a shit.**

**I can’t even piss.”**

_ ‘They don’t need to know this, Kevin. Get to the point—- _

**“Are you going to fucking shut up? Could you please let me not think for like,** **_5 minutes?_ ** **Will you be fucking quiet?”**

_...Proceed. _

**“Thank you.”**

Kevin buries his face into a pillow and screams, dry and more painful than he’d hoped for. He hurls the pillow at the laptop and it glitches in anger at him. The camera stares at the ceiling, and Kevin doesn’t care enough to fix it.

**“This video isn’t for any of you. In fact, if you’re watching it, it’s probably a hefty invasion of privacy, but I guess I can’t stop you.”**

A sigh. A pause, and then his heart beats too loudly.

**“This video is for you, Jacob.**

**God, I can’t believe you’re dead.**

**You’re six feet under and your eyes are closed and they’ll be like that until the world, like, implodes and we start from the beginning.**

**There’s gonna be, fuckin’, birds and shit just chilling on your grave.**

**Not giving a fuck.**

**Just pecking at your forever home.”**

Kevin wells up. He hasn’t properly cried, yet, and it’s been weeks. 

**“Holy shit, Jake.**

**I haven’t moved in days.**

**I look like genuine turd, are you seeing this?”**

He tilts the screen back up and motions to his general face, blubbering and goopy and awful. 

**“** **_You_ ** **still looked good dead, you know.**

**Granted, they’d cleaned you up and styled your hair and laid you in a coffin full of roses, but you still looked great.**

**You were you.**

**I swore I saw you breathe and flutter and mutter at me like you do when you sleep.**

**You know you drool in your sleep, don’t you? And you talk, too. You’re so annoying.**

**God, I wish you were here. I want you to keep me up at night again.”**

Kevin is no longer Kevin, at this point. He is a barely breathing chunk of salty snot, and his trusty sidekick, the lump that lives in his throat. 

“ **I wish you’d told me. I wish I knew, Jacob. Shit, I thought I** **_knew_ ** **you.**

**I know your heart and your hands and exactly how much guac to put on your nachos.**

**I know the names of everyone that bullied you in school and the girls you’d play house with in kindergarten.**

**I know I love you, and I know you loved me. And it doesn’t matter how.**

**Remember?”**

Chuckling, he dabs aimlessly at his chin, catching a runaway tear. 

**“How people always told us to just date already? To just kiss?**

**Do you think they know everything? How couldn’t they, man?**

**We were everywhere.**

**God, am I even making any fucking sense?”**

(He isn’t.)

**“Jacob, Jacob.**

**Jesus fucking Christ, Jacob.**

**You know I haven’t prayed since I was 12? I keep talking to the moon. I keep gesturing to the air and begging whoever the fuck is up there - Allah, Vishnu, fucking… somebody.**

**I’d do anything to bring you back.**

**I’d repent all my sins and I’d give up my life. Should I?”**

(He shouldn’t.) 

**“Who even sold you them, Jacob? I’m prepared to kill, y’know?**

**Was it the codeine I left in your room when I broke my finger? Pills? Sudden sniffing death? Did you have to inject? Or… worse?**

**It doesn’t matter. I don’t know what matters.**

**Honestly, I don’t know where I’ll go from here. I’ll move my limbs and feel my lungs in my chest but that might be it.**

**I’ll try not to become a scarecrow.**

**I hope it gets better from here.”**

The final sob is scratchy, makes his whole chest burn. His brain returns slowly. 

**“Oh. Billie kicked the bucket, by the way.**

**She was, like, 17, and couldn’t see anymore, and kept croaking. Sounded more like a frog than a Corgi.**

**We had her paw printed into this clay shit and my sister painted it, like, my least favourite colour and put it up on the wall.**

**What the fuck is chartreuse?**

**I wish I had more of you. Your mom gave me your guitar. I’m sorry. I’ll keep her safe and clean and tuned. I’ll play your fucking terrible straight dude songs. Man, your music taste** **_sucks_ ** **.”**

**I wish you were Billie. I want your paw print, Jacob. Ain’t that something, huh?**

**You dumb fucking dog.**

**I miss you.”**

Kevin - and his brain - stop the recording. The mouse hovers over the ‘Share’ button. One tap and it’s out there, for anyone and everyone to see. 

He doesn’t post it. 

He saves it in an album named only with a peach emoji, keyboard smashes and leaves it in there with 500 pictures of Jacob, Jacob’s smile, him and Jacob. Jacob and Billie. Jacob and his guitar. Jacob.  _ Jacob _ . 

Back to the drawing board. 

  
  


**What’s on your mind, Kevin?**

_ My dog died and my homie OD’d.  _

_ (Posted 25 seconds ago via Facebook for Web browser.) _

_________________

  
  


It’s nice outside. Quiet, warm, exactly like he’d remembered, but somehow completely different. The trees glisten. The road doesn’t burn his feet anymore

_ ‘I forgot to put shoes on?” _

Kevin laughs with his chest, full and hearty as he wiggles his bare toes. 

“What are you laughing at, dude?” 

The voice is calm, familiar and right behind him. Jacob kicks him in the shin and it’s gonna leave a bruise. It’s so welcomed.

“Gosh, Jacob, you won’t  _ believe  _ the dream I just had. It was horrifying. You were — I’m so sorry, bro, you were  _ d—“ _

“Dead?” Jacob gasps, mockingly. Kevin narrows his eyes, huffing.

“No. You were digging up mushrooms, but the mushrooms were, like… growing out of your asshole, man, it was insane.”

“Damn. I’d rather have died.”

Their giggles mingle together, disappearing into the air. Kevin grabs hold of Jacob’s hand, grips tightly. 

“Y’know what would’ve been funny, Jacob?” 

“What?”

“If, like, okay— like if I’d written a story, yeah? And you’d died and I’d had this awful breakdown, like, I was barely even a functioning human. Then, dude, hear me out. I pulled one of those  _ ‘And It Was All A Dream _ ’ type tropes?” 

Grasping his chest, Jacob staggers back with an over ambitious gasp, always dramatic. “Is that what’s happening here?”

“Nah. Just a thought.”

Their fingers tighten as they step forward, chests flush and stuttering with soft laughter. Jacob brushes a hair out of Kevin’s face, and it’s all very beautiful.

“Why do you still dream, Kev? We don’t even have to sleep anymore?”

“Dunno. Gotta keep things weird, surreal, you know?”

“We’re literally spirits?”

“That we are, Jacob. That we are.” 


End file.
